The Adventures of Michael the Fox
by andie.beahn
Summary: Weird things are happening way out in the deserts of New Mexico. A small town of animal-human hybrids mysteriously arise due to a freak accident. Michael the Fox tries to escape from the local officials, who are known as The Murder, and who were once a flock of crows. He ends up in the human world, and gets caught up in strange and illegal adventures with his human friend, Nathan.


Chapter 1: The Old Witch Doctor

Golden light created beautiful halos around the edges of the desert plateaus; their rocks were layered with fiery colors of reds, yellows, and browns. The air was clean, crisp and fresh, like how it only is in the open nature right at morning time. The morning sun was currently rising over the plateaus in a small desert in New Mexico. It was a place that most outsiders would look at and classify as, "the middle of nowhere," but to its many inhabitants, both human and animal alike, it was the entire world. A small universe of its own, complete with its own history, rules, and legends. One of these many legends was approaching right now as we speak. The rattle of a rattlesnake's tale could be heard from the distance, it rattled to a beat as the figure trudged across the landscape. Her breath huffed and puffed with great effort. And her eyes gleamed from underneath her wide brimmed hat. Her hair was a black and wiry mess that stuck out in all directions. Her long coat fanned out behind her in the slight wind to reveal her worn out and filthy boots which held her aching and bloody feet. She was approaching the shade of a tall cactus, which had fiery red, orange and yellow flowers, that were made to look even more fiery because they were lit up by the morning sun. A small lizard poked its head out from underneath the flower, as a cricket chirped carelessly just inches away, completely unaware of the mortal danger she was in, and still, the beat of the rattlesnake tail came closer. The woman had a beautiful and angular face on most days, but today it looked much more skeletal due to her sunken eyes. They looked bright, but also droopy and tired. She shook and clutched to her coat as she fell into the shade of the cactus and let out a relieved sound as she took off her shoes. She put her aching feet and buried them into the cold sand, letting the sand go in between her toes.

Days before this, she had experienced the worst day of her life. She had been outcasted by her family and townspeople and sent into the desert to die, but to be honest, that wasn't event the worst part of that horrible day. The townspeople had outcasted her because her magic had finally gone too far. She'd always been good at magic, even as a little girl. She blasted through all of the beginner's and intermediate's books by the age of six, and there was no use in teaching her with other students her age because it just became discouraging for all the others. By the age of ten, her parents gave her over to the care of the local witch doctor. He was a fantastic wizard, and a nice man and functioned both as a teacher, a parent, and a friend, and quickly, she surpassed even his abilities. Now all of this was well and good, but the main issue, was that her talent never seemed to stop growing. It began to seem that every year, you could see that she'd gotten visibly stronger; her face grew more radiant, her hair grew wilder, and she walked with more and more strength and confidence. She was the great Witch of the West, who had full control over a great creature that dwelled inside of her. She could tap into her magic, communicate what she wanted it to do, and watch as every spell and evocation fell before her into submission. And this is how things went for many years, until the unexpected death of her mentor due to a sudden illness.

It was a rainy day when the new witch doctor buried her old mentor. She stood in front of the townspeople with the written note which was the speech she had prepared. Writing down her feelings had never been her strong suit. It always seemed that the words on the page just never could really capture what was going on inside, especially now. She looked down at the note, just a paragraph of words about the most important person in her life, the one person who understood her inside and out, and who had been more of a family to her than her true parents. The more she looked at the paper, and pondered about how even writing in a conversation with herself she can't even express her thoughts; the more she came to the realization of how completely alone she felt. Her eyes blinked back tears in frustration.

And then, the strangest thing happened. The rain stopped falling, as she heard the sound of something croaking falling right by her ear and then going 'splat' by her feet. She looked beside her to see a flattened toad. The congregation on the lawn looked up and squinted, as they saw little black dots of 'somethings' falling from the sky. The first person to have a toad hit them on the head was Mrs. Nester, followed by many, many more. There was mass panic across town, accompanied by the sounds of screaming people, mooing cattle, and breaking glass. And the cleanup of the aftermath might have actually been worse. The Storm of Toads was just the beginning. It seemed that anytime the new witch doctor was upset, strange things happened, and the more that strange things happened, the more people began to hate her, and the more people hated her, the more upset she became, which caused more and more weird things to happen. Water turned to blood as people drank it, cows grew wings and flew away, and even a house turned into slime that melted and oozed into a big puddle. It was the worst thing the town had ever seen. The magic inside of her, that she had tamed into submission all of these years, had grown a mind of its own, and the town reflected her own wounded psyche.

On the worst day of her life, the people held a town meeting where they were going to hold a vote over whether or not she should be exiled. I mean sure, getting the winged cows to come out of the trees to milk them is always a really big hassle, but to exile someone was actually a death sentence. All around was nothing but desert, a beautiful and dangerous wasteland. Things were out of hand, but some people didn't want to go that far with the situation. The town leader stood up at the podium, with the elders sitting beside him in a row, the witch doctor sat on the other side of the stage under trial, nervously playing with her hands. The leader read off the list of complaints, and then opened the floor to the people to speak their opinions, most were negative and driven by fear, and only a handful at this point were sympathetic, this caused the leader to wipe sweat from his brow as he casted a nervous glance over to her. And then, the final straw was put onto the camel's back. As he reached for the gavel to commission the beginning of the voting period, he paused and his eyes became unfocused, he stood there in this state for just a few seconds, and then collapsed, falling off the stage, dead. The crowd gasped in horror as all went silent. After the moments of shock passed, the witch doctor stood up with a firm resolve, she approached the podium, and voted against herself. The vote was unanimous, it had all gone too far.

She reminisced about all of these happenings, as she sat in the shade of the cactus, digging her toes into the cool sand. She had already been without any water for many days now. She spent the last few hours of her life in this manner; sad, but at peace with her decision to protect all the others. She laid down after a while and closed her eyes and passed away while feeling this mixed emotion of sadness, resolve, and love.

A year passed, and in the shady spot of the cactus a weird plant began to sprout. It was the strangest looking plant that anybody had ever seen, and that anybody would probably ever see again. A month passed from then, and the weird plant grew a weird flower. A little white tuft of fluff. It had grainy seeds embedded in the tuft, and it had a very sweet flavor.

A murder of crows passed overhead just a few days later, while the morning sun bounced off of the white tufts that were now in full bloom. They swooped down in a big group and began to eat some breakfast. And then, what was probably the strangest thing of all happened, one of the crows stopped mid-bite, the tuft falling out of his beak, he looked up to see another crow standing in front of him, and he had a _Thought_. "That thing is ugly, what is that? Is that what Ilook like?" The other crows began to stop eating one by one too. They all looked around at each-other while having thoughts. Many of them had the same thought after a while, "This feels really weird, but I guess I'll get used to it…" And shrugging their little bird shoulders, they would each go back to eating breakfast.


End file.
